


Made Whole

by lampsabout



Series: Vicar Maxmillian DeSoto and Captain Hannibal Reyes [1]
Category: The Outer Worlds (Video Game)
Genre: :eyes emoji:, A short fic about Max and his rambling yearning, M/M, OH and Empty Man spoilers, also mentions of parvati seeing the captain as a father figure, i love him very much and apparently so does max, implied religious abuse, posting older works rn while i work on larger fics uwu, specifically about my himbo captain oc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:09:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26689450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lampsabout/pseuds/lampsabout
Summary: Max stopped himself from extrapolating that thought further. No. There was no...affection in this action. It was a sign of camaraderie. Nothing more. He had seen Hannibal with the others. He acted the same way. Hands touching shoulders, arms around necks, bear hugs sprung out of nowhere.Max tried, oh how he tried, to ignore Hannibal’s thumb, slowly moving back and forth over his shoulder. He tried so hard just to eat his goddamn dinner and rest easy with the knowledge that Hannibal did this with everyone. But for all Max denied, he couldn’t pretend that his heart did not skip a beat and soar when Hannibal said his name, inviting him into conversation. The way it had so easily, so casually slipped off his tongue, the way he had looked at him, his one good eye a dark brown. The way he had smiled at him...Max excused himself from dinner for the rest of the night, for fear that his face would combust if he spent more than a minute longer in that room.
Relationships: Male Captain/Maximillian DeSoto, The Captain/Maximillian DeSoto
Series: Vicar Maxmillian DeSoto and Captain Hannibal Reyes [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2074851
Comments: 5
Kudos: 23





	Made Whole

Max had made several observations about Hannibal Reyes. By no means was Reyes an unintelligent man, quite the opposite really. He was very knowledgeable about medicine, being able to dress wounds on the fly and deduce when surgery was necessary. Something had to have earned him his spot on the Hope, Max supposed.

But at the same time, he could be a complete and total idiot. He’d have visible trouble with anything related to math (something that proved problematic whenever the crew needed new ammo or weapons), and while his memory was impeccable when it came to names and faces, it was suddenly gone when he needed a tool and shouted for max to hand him “the thingy”.

And even then, with his mathematical difficulties and his inability to grasp broader concepts, it wasn’t for lack of trying. Max admired the way his captain worked overtime to understand The Plan and Max’s beliefs. Hannibal had been very straightforward when they had met, he wasn’t religious in any definition of the word, but he felt it important to understand his crew, which included learning about their beliefs. It was a refreshing welcome gift to Max, who had long since been put down for his beliefs by people (which honestly, he had been kind of a jerk about it, they had a point).

In turn, Max felt it had been fair to ask his captain the same. Though at the mention of his upbringing, Hannibal instantly soured, his usual radiant smile decaying into a frown. A touchy subject.

Hannibal Reyes tended to stick out in a crowd. Standing at a rough 6’2”, his soft stomach and clunky armor made him easy to spot among typical space-farers. His gear, scrapped from the corpses of ravagers and bots, was haphazard, yet secure. He looked almost lower-grade than your average Spacer’s Choice worker or wealthy socialite, his graying beard and thick accent making him seem almost inhuman among the common people of The Halcyon. His usual smile and clunky appearance hid the fact that he could easily lift max up with one hand. His hair, according to Hannibal, had once been a jet black, but was now graying in various places. Along with his scarred face and deep wrinkles, Hannibal definitely looked as old as he was. But if age was getting to him, it didn’t show it. Hannibal was a beast in combat. Gunning down robotic monsters and packs of Raptodon’s without batting an eye. He seemed...at ease in combat, almost. It puzzled Max.

Max had long since recognized that earth was quite different from the Halcyon. But growing closer to Reyes made that difference even more apparent. According to Hannibal, the dominant religion where he grew up was highly oppressive and restrictive, despite the fact that the original text preached the exact opposite. Hannibal spent years repressing his interest in men, for fear of violence. It made Max’s blood boil. That anyone could do that to a child. The Plan was by no means perfect, everyone omits the parts of religion they don’t agree with, but Max felt a deep, sympathetic anger on his behalf.

Max often found himself thinking about what it would’ve been like if he had met Captain Reyes at a different time in each of their lives. What if Hannibal was just a normal Halcyon citizen? Would the lack of restriction on religion or sexuality have given him his intense hatred of authority? Or would his vengeful fury towards The Board have manifested by being a firsthand witness to the terror they inflicted daily? What if Max had been a human native to planet earth? What if they had met in college? What would Max be like without the plan? Would his influence on Hannibal’s life just hurt him more?

Hannibal’s eye was a different story. He refused to discuss how he lost it or when, though from what Max understood, the incident that occurred had spurred Hannibal’s interest in medical sciences.

But he supposed that if Hannibal’s bad childhood had not driven him to become a doctor, then he would never have wound up in the Halcyon.  _ With me _ . Max thought.

It was selfish of him to think things like that. To think of Hannibal as “his” when no such relationship existed. When there would never be such a connection between the two of them, as much as he desperately wanted there to be.

Max couldn’t deny that he found Hannibal...how had Felix put it? “Bangin’”? Regardless, Max didn’t try to convince himself that he wasn’t prone to watching the captain as he moved down The Unreliable’s halls in his far-too-tight casual wear. Max did not lie to himself when he found himself distracted by his captain in one of Nyoka’s casually led training sessions. He was a stubborn old man, but he wasn’t an idiot.

Max went on plenty of missions with Hannibal and the other crewmates, almost volunteering on multiple occasions. He was the second member to join after Parvati, making a motley crew that he would soon regard the closest people to him. And when he would fight side by side with Parvati and Hannibal, or just walk through doors and do trade with them near him, he noticed the way the two talked. Like they had known eachother their whole lives.

Max watched the two of them work on tuning up the ship, or just talking over food. He pretended not to notice when Parvati let slip a “Be careful, dad!” during a fight. It made Max feel guilty, in a way. If Hannibal was like a father to Parvati, then what would that make Max? Some  _ other  _ old guy who looked at her father far too long and far too intensely? He never brought it up. He was too afraid to bring up how she would feel about a relationship that Max had to keep reminding himself  _ did not exist. _

ADA seemed to notice it before Max did. On more than one occasion the AI had talked to him in her monotone voice about the way he looked at the captain. The way she noted his heart-rate went up on the medical scanners when Hannibal was nearby. The way Max’s speech patterns died down when Captain Reyes made direct eye contact with him as he spoke. Max retreated to his room that night, pretending to ignore the thumping in his chest by telling himself that ADA’s words were just the ramblings of a delusional bot. That was all.

Max decided he was in love with Hannibal Reyes a few days later. Hannibal, Parvati, and Nyoka sat at the dinner table, with Max eating next to Reyes. It was a quiet night, no Felix shouting along to the toss ball announcers, no Ellie practicing her sharpshooting, no clunking and fizzing of Parvati in the engine room. Just the voices of friends.

Max had tuned out what the crew was talking about, and was planning to continue eating, before a hand clamped over his shoulder. Max turned to see what the fuss was, only to find that nothing was the matter at all. It was a simple touch. Not meant to mean anything. Just a show of affection so casual and meaningless, but it lit a fire inside of Max’s jaded mind. Hannibal grinned as he spoke, taking another swig from his drink as he maintained idle chatter. Max hid his shaky smile in his food, though he imagined his blush had covered his whole face bright red. His ears burned as Hannibal’s hand did not move from his shoulder. A show of support. A show of trust, of patience, of…

Max stopped himself from extrapolating that thought further. No. There was no...affection in this action. It was a sign of camaraderie. Nothing more. He had seen Hannibal with the others. He acted the same way. Hands touching shoulders, arms around necks, bear hugs sprung out of nowhere.

Max tried, oh how he tried, to ignore Hannibal’s thumb, slowly moving back and forth over his shoulder. He tried so hard just to eat his goddamn dinner and rest easy with the knowledge that Hannibal did this with everyone. But for all Max denied, he couldn’t pretend that his heart did not skip a beat and  _ soar  _ when Hannibal said his name, inviting him into conversation. The way it had so easily, so casually slipped off his tongue, the way he had looked at him, his one good eye a dark brown. The way he had smiled at him... 

Max excused himself from dinner for the rest of the night, for fear that his face would combust if he spent more than a minute longer in that room.

Max became much more acutely aware of Hannibal’s behaviors when it came to casual touch from that point onward. He tended to throw an arm around a crewmate’s shoulder when they were talking. A hand to the shoulder as a show of camaraderie.

Yet it was...different. Like his displays of trust were tailor made for his crewmates. For Nyoka, it was a slap on the arm before he settled into a comfortable position to keep talking with. He rustled Felix’s hair before throwing an arm around him. He and Ellie seemed to high five as an introduction in place of actual words. Parvati usually received a hug. As for Max, how could he not take note? At first, it seemed that Hannibal added no special ingredient to his touch for the Vicar. But as Max spent more and more time with him, he started to notice how Hannibal lingered. How his calloused fingers stayed still, rubbing small circles or just moving back and forth, as if to just feel Max under his hand, just to feel the rhythmic beats of his heart or the pumping of his blood. Just to remind himself that his friend was alive, perhaps.

And Max knew that it was just that. That it was a thing he did with all his friends. This was just how Hannibal showed platonic affection for his closest friends. And Max was one of his closest  _ friends. _ What was Max doing, pretending to himself, daring to hope that it was something more than that? He was being irresponsible, is what. He was being an unprofessional crewmate and a traitorous friend for pretending that Hannibal could be expressing interest in someone like  _ him _ . Max found himself pondering if it was the fact that he had gone so long without a human touch that wasn’t a punch. He had been so used to the beatings in prison, the quick slaps on the head from his parents, that perhaps he had latched onto a relationship with the first person to show him kindness. Yes, that had to be it. It was a show of friendship. Max was just acting strange. Believing in things that weren’t there. His mind was playing tricks on him, that was all.

Then why was Hannibal in all of Max’s dreams? Why did Max dream of his rugged face, his graying hair? Why did Max dream about Hannibal’s hand, clasped in his. Why did he dream about Hannibal affirming to him that he was there? That he was okay? Why were his dreams filled with Hannibal’s hands, calloused and rugged from spacework and exercise, brushing over Max’s cheek? Why were his thoughts, even as he woke, consumed by his lips gently grazing over his, before he delved into him, too desperate and in love to wait? Why did his mind race with images of his arms looping behind Max’s back, cradling him as…

Max usually cut off his thoughts right there. Reminding himself to be realistic. To be honest. To be professional. Hannibal was his captain. To think of him in such a way would be disrespectful to the highest degree.

But acknowledging it did not make it less apparent. 

Max did not plan to change his mind when he and Hannibal went alone on Scylla to see the woman in her shack. He had expected to find another dead end and give up on unraveling a centuries old religion that had been perverted and warped by corporate greed. It was an unrealistic and foolish dream.

But then he saw the ghosts of his parents as he got high on that woman’s concoction with Hannibal. He heard their biting words and their strict doctrine. He saw himself, the person he had wanted to be. A devout Max, a Max who fought for what he wanted, a Max who followed the Plan and did so with great pleasure. A Max that wasn’t him.

Max wanted to cry. He wanted to sit down and stay there and never leave. He wanted to badly just to be left alone, but then there was a hand on his shoulder. A hand that grounded him. Max looked up, tears running down his face. He already knew it from the thumb moving back and forth, but still, there he was. And Max’s heart threatened to beat out of his chest. Even stoned out of his mind, he was breathtaking.

When Max told Hannibal he loved him, it was on the way back to the Unreliable. The experience at the woman’s shack had changed them both, and Max considered it for the better. But he couldn’t go on like this with the guilt bearing down on him. When Max had made his confession, he had fully expected to be left on the abandoned moon they now stood on. He didn’t expect Hannibal to kiss him. And then kiss him again. Then again, and again, and again, and again.

It was that night that Max realized he had never shared a bed with someone he loved. From his childhood, his parents forbade him from finding comfort in their presence. As a young adult, no one found an up-tight scholar desperate to unravel The Plan particularly attractive. And Prison was obviously a non-starter.

But now, lying in a much too small standard issue bed, with Hannibal behind him, his face pressed into the back of Max’s neck and his arms around his stomach, Max felt loved.

And he slept soundly for the first time that he could remember.

  
  



End file.
